


One Little, Entirely Different

by Ani



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 14:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ani/pseuds/Ani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John returns to London from the war and is rescued by a chance encounter on a park bench. It is not Sherlock Holmes who finds him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Little, Entirely Different

**Author's Note:**

> "Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing... It may seem to point very straight to _one_ thing, but if you shift your own point of view a _little_ , you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something _entirely different_."
> 
> \- Sherlock Holmes, [The Boscombe Valley Mystery](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1661/1661-h/1661-h.htm#4)

            It was a cold, clear day, the day John went for a walk. He put a yellow apple in his coat pocket and walked through the park, until he came to the first bench, and taking it as good as any he sat down and rested his cane against the wooden back and stared at the city horizon, until building and street melted into thought. He listened to the roar of static in his ears. It was like the white noise of seashells keeping memories of waves, only horrible; it was the sound of silence before danger happened, before anything happened, a tense and participatory silence, a predatory silence, only now nothing did.

            When a man sat down next to him on the bench with a quiet rustle the waiting seemed somehow, and suddenly, to come to an end. He felt a sense that he should dart away, quickly, and hide, like a rabbit. Or coil his shoulders for the pounce. He looked at the stranger carefully. He was a small man in a nice suit. He took out his own apple from a brown paper bag, a red one, and said, very casually, the words rolling oily on his tongue, “Nice weather today, isn’t it?”

            “Mm-hmm,” John said. “Yes.”

            “But I don’t think it will last. I think there’s a storm brewing, out there, that will be on us eventually.” The man blinked, twice, rapidly. He took a bite of his apple, a loud snap and the crunch of his teeth stripping skin. He ripped the flesh away with a jerk. “What do you think, Doctor Watson?”

            “I’m sorry, do we know each other?” John asked. Blandly, just a shadow of wire in the back. Something was awry but he didn’t know what yet and he wasn’t going to leave until he did - which was one of a dozen character traits that made John a very good soldier and very likely to be shot at. That was the problem with his work, the problem that had landed him here, in London, damaged, alone: the purpose of war was to make of yourself a slice of death until rendered useless. And now, in this moment, he was curious.

            “We’re not quite introduced,” the man said cheerfully, with a touch of apology. “You may call me M. Will that do, for now? And I don’t know you _properly_. Just what these papers say.” He opened a silver briefcase and passed John a folder. His dossier: military record, résumé, school credits, _secondary_ school credits, photos of him walking down the street the day before...

            John shut it and handed it back with an almost-shove. “So what’s all this about, then? Are you threatening me?”

            The man laughed, loudly, too loudly, like a bark. “Doctor Watson,” he said, looking at John indulgently, “I would never presume. I’m here on job offer.”

            This was not a job offer.

            Not a _normal_ job offer.

    He handed him another file with a smile. Government I.D. Records, papers, all the official ephemera signifying the life of an M who held a minor position in the British government with a peculiarly high clearance level. The only information not given was the rest of his blacked-out name. The pictures were all of a small, quiet, harmless man in a nice suit.

            “You can verify me here,” he said. “And at the office. You are welcome to come in anytime. I have dozens of contact references, if you like.”

            This here could not be a wholly innocent thing. This was dangerous and strange and, well, it was not the nothing that happened to John but not every thing was a good thing. John tapped his knee, pursed his lips, straightened up. He was not sure how to play this, but it seemed best to see it through to an end, so that he could plot the appropriate next stop. So he asked, “You want me to work for the Department of Transportation?”

            M laughed again, giggled really, like a child. “Oh, Watson - may I call you that, Dr. Watson? - you’re funny. They didn’t tell me that. Not even Bill Murray.”

            This had the exact effect on John that was likely wanted.

            “I get it already,” he said lowly, “you’re Big Brother. What do you want from me?”

            “Watson,” M said, just as quietly, leaning in close, staring into John’s eyes, “You are an incredible man. I’ve seen your records. I’ve heard what you can do. You shouldn’t be a doctor.”

            He scowled with offense. “What?”

            “You’re just a doctor? An army doctor? Or are you an _army_ doctor?” M moved even closer, whispering into John’s ear. “Your hand has stopped trembling.”

            John jerked back, grabbed his cane in claim of potential movement. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asked. He asked it even though they both clearly knew the answer.

            “We could use someone with your talents and drives,” M said innocently. He sat back and took another bite of his apple, like any normal man on lunch. “You’ve been treated unceremoniously and we would like to fix that.”

            When there was just silence, and a mute fury had lodged in his throat, John stood up and walked away as quickly as he could on one stiff leg. “Just call me if you change your mind!” M called after him, sweetly.

 

 

 

   Later that night, when he is changing for bed, John will find the business card in his back pocket.

 

 

 

            Two days later, he called.

            He could blame the dreams or the horrible flat or curiosity or even research for self-preservation, but to be honest John knew it was a terrible idea and did it anyway.

   He received an appointment for four in the afternoon.

 

 

 

            At the meeting he was served tea in bone china and buttery shortbread biscuits, after the briefest wait, in the lobby of a boring government office with a bored receptionist. M shut the door behind him. He was polite and cheerful. He answered almost every question John had, and when he couldn’t, was deeply apologetic, it was just that his hands were tied. He had wide, calculating eyes, that blinked rapidly, as if he was taking pictures, or communicating in silence. M was obviously dangerous but John did not know exactly what _kind_ of dangerous and the more he documented, the more he explained, the more it seemed clear, and the more John believed him.

            M explained the work. It is awful business, he said at the start, and I wouldn’t ask if you if I didn’t think you weren’t up to it. At any time you may leave this conversation and will never be bothered again, I assure you.

   The job, Watson, is to kill people.

            Just a few people. Here and there. People we know are guilty, have the evidence for, but cannot take down in any other way. People that are going to do far more damage out in the world than they are dead. M showed him an example. Starving children swept off the streets of Brazil and paraded for the highest bidder. He did not want to know, but M made him look anyway, at the cruelty, at the desperation.  One man orchestrating it all. The failed legal attempts to stop them. The final decision, guilty tears in his eyes, when M asks his best operative to make a move. This is what we do, M said. What you would do.

            Do you want to help, Dr. Watson?

 

 

 

            This is how John finds himself in the back of a van late at night. The van smells like sweat and urine. They smuggle the children in it. He is seated on tangled blankets and holding a gun.

            John had spent several days thinking about it. Had spent several days researching, validating the existence of M, and of this new, dangerous, sick enemy. He was confident that they had run out of legal methods to stop him. He was confident that if no one acted there would be children enslaved.

            M was wrong: John is an army _doctor_.

            M was right: John is _army_.

            He is given a target and justification for murder. And John knows that with the proper justification, he will feel no guilt.

            It takes only a moment to identify the man when he opens the van door. Only a moment to recognize his expression of shock, to clear the background, no accidental targets; not even the time for the man to pass from surprise into fear. John squeezes the trigger. Feels the snap in the gun. The legal, registered gun, specially licensed. He has his own old gun tucked in the slope of his back.

            The man shudders with blood and force and collapses on the ground. John is a good shot. He feels very little pain.

            John climbs out of the van and looks around. The warehouse is empty. M has promised that someone else will be there to clean up. He tucks the gun up into the sleeve of his jacket and calmly walks out, up the river, up to a warmly lit pub where he hails a cab for home. At his little grey flat he uses the assigned phone to text _finished_ to an unnamed number.

            John sleeps easy that night.

 

 

            John sees M in his office a few days after. M squeals when he enters and ushers him into a chair for a cup of celebratory wine, rubbing his shoulders, gushing over him. It’s not quite right, the enthusiasm. It makes John feel uncomfortable. “I think I have only one better,” he coos, his eyelids fluttering like a feverish butterfly. He doesn’t give John another case. Tells him to lay low for awhile. John returns to his flat. It is more uncomfortable this time. The ache in his leg comes back and he lays out and dreams with his eyes open.

 

 

            Harry calls. She asks how he is doing. “Fine,” he says, and cannot elaborate. Harry cannot tell the distinction between can and won’t. Perhaps the line is thin there anyway, and she gets snippy with him. They end the call in a foul mood. John goes out to eat, to sit in a restaurant where there is chatter and refilled tea and bright lights and normal people. He is receiving weekly cheques from the Department of Transportation. There is no bonus for his recent work, which reassures him. The money is enough to eat out. The money is enough to stay in London. He looks for work anyway, to fill up his days, but the clinics don’t (perhaps suspiciously) have much interest.

            When his special, second phone rings, he feels disturbingly pacified.

 

 

            The second kill is more of a challenge. John has to wait for her in her home. He has to stare at her photographs of young adults drunk and smiling and her framed degree and the nearly empty bookshelves and the heaps of unwashed shirts sliding out from under her closet door. When she comes in she has time to scream and beg.

            The begging is the worse.

            Her prayers are not answered as his were.

            John shoots her and leaves and when he gets home he is sick. He saw what she’d been doing to her patients, across hospitals, the attempted charges washed out in court, the bruises, the hallowed eyes, the death count. But it doesn’t sit quite right.

            When he mentions this at the next meeting M pats his hair and says there, there, as if John is a child with a nightmare. She deserved it, he says. _Deserved_ it. He says this with a throaty roll, with satisfaction, his grin not meeting his eyes.

            It makes John refuse the next call, a few weeks later. M says, “That’s fine,” and hangs up. He doesn’t say it with sorrowful theatrics, as John had been predicting, or even with disappointment. Just flat, business-like. He doesn’t send John another case. He offers him in for tea. He gives John the name of a trusted therapist if he would like. The British Government acknowledges his sacrifice.

            John has trouble sleeping again.

            But then he doesn’t, after the third case.

 

 

            The third one is simple again. A man in a basement. A murderer who walked free. A murderer who has killed several times and will again. He hisses when he sees John waiting there for him. Like a cat. John has the brief, crazy thought that he is becoming some twisted superhero, some awful Batman. Vigilante and mercenary are two sides of a coin separated by the reeded edge of legal approval, he thinks, and shoots the man through the head.

 

 

            _Enough_ , he tells M, when he sees the fourth intended victim. It is a sixty four year-old man. John sees the picture and doesn’t bother going through the file. “I need a break.”

            “Of course,” he says. “You’ve done more than I would normally let my soldiers. You’re just _too_ good, aren’t you? My little right hand.”

            “Who’s the left?” John asks, realizing afterwards that he is attempting some kind of joke.

            M giggles. “It’d be lovely to see you two together. _Lovely_. But I can’t have both hands tied together, now can I...” he sets the folder on his table and offers John a tin of pistachio Turkish delight. John knows that the case will be pushed along, and that the old man will die anyway. He watches M lick the powdered sugar from his fingers and grin toothily. Something in him, but he doesn’t know which part and he doesn’t know why, is whispering _something is wrong_.

 

 

 

            John still likes to go on walks. He puts on his favourite jumper and ambles through parks. Occasionally he will walk far down city blocks, further and further with no end in sight, until the return trip is exhausting. There is no purpose, but the illusion of it comforts him.

            His normal therapist appointments are even more useless than before.

            He eats out but it’s lonely, so mostly he eats in his tiny grey flat. He does not like the flat. He is thinking about moving, but he’s not sure he’ll always have the money for it, if he’s going to stay where he is...

            John still feels like he’s waiting for something, but he’s not sure what.

 

 

            _Try again?_ He gets the text at six-thirty in the morning. _Details_ , John texts back. He gets an address.

            It’s not hard to pick out the intended target. The man is tall and angular, all long limbs in a long coat. He tucks money into a young girl’s palm with a whisper and she’s off like a frightened doe. The man takes a quick look around before sweeping off, past John and into a coffee shop, muttering something about hydrochloric acid

            _Why?_ John texts.

            _Come by for the details, if you want them. I’d love to see you._

            John can change his mind later. But he would like to know, and in order to see the folder, see the terrible crimes this man has committed, he has to agree.

          _I’ll take it._

_Keep following him, gather information. V. dangerous. Watch yourself._

_Name?_ John asks. He doesn’t usually, but then, he’s never been asked for a long tail. This case is obviously something special.

            The reply comes back, _Sherlock Holmes._


End file.
